I’ve got this suspected virus problem with my friend’s PC (Windows XP SP2) and am wondering if anyone can help me out. Let me tell you what I have already done and what I assume to be the cause of the problem.

The symptoms are that I cannot access lots of important websites, such as windows update, anti-virus sites, opera homepage, but even apparently unrelated ones like the German news magazine Der Spiegel, etc. This website-blocking thing appears to be a frequent feature of more recent viruses.

A quick look at the virus vault of AVG Free Edition tells me that over the course of the last few months, a number of viruses have been found, deleted and a copy kept in the vault. These were the following:
Trojan horse: StartPage.16.BD (se.dll)
Trojan horse: Dropper.ExeBundle.AH (crack22.exe)
Trojan horse: Dropper.Small.22.AV (Ati2mdxx.exe)
Java/ByteVerify (opr001PD.class, opr001PF.class)

should be terminated and I did just that. I also deleted all temporary internet files and the whole content of the TEMP folder. Moreover, I flushed the DNS cache.
But all that doesn’t seem to have helped and I have sort of run out of ideas, to be honest.

I read somewhere that such viruses often proceed by a procedure called DLL injection and store their firewall-like instructions somewhere in the Windows folder. The only hint I could see about this is that the AVG scan log gives me lots of entries that appear to have been changed. In detail, it reports the result ‘change’ and the status ‘changed’ for the following entries, while usually it just indicates with an ‘ok’ that a file is allright:
Boot sector of disk C:
C:\Windows\System32\kernel32.dll
C:\Windows\System32\wsock32.dll
C:\Windows\System32\user32.dll
C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll
C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.dll

Could it be that these files have been changed by the virus? Or maybe the problem lies in a completely different place…. In any case, I’m utterly clueless and would appreciate any suggestions from you guys.

Please print out or copy this page to Notepad. Make sure to work through the fixes in the exact order it is mentioned below. If there's anything that you don't understand, ask your question(s) before proceeding with the fixes. You should 'not' have any open browsers when you are following the procedures below.

1. Install Ewido Security Suite.
2. When installing, under 'Additional Options' uncheck:
* Install background guard
* Install scan via context menu
3. Launch Ewido, there should be an icon on your desktop, double click it.
4. The program will now open to the main screen.
5. When you run Ewido for the first time, you will get a warning 'Database could not be found!'. Click OK. We will fix this in a moment.
6. You will need to update Ewido to the latest definition files.
* On the left hand side of the main screen click update.
* Then click on Start Update.
7. The update will start and a progress bar will show the updates being installed. The status bar at the bottom will display 'Update successful'.
8. Exit Ewido. DO NOT scan yet.

Restart your computer and boot into Safe Mode by hitting the F8 key repeatedly until a menu shows up (and choose Safe Mode from the list). In some systems, this may be the F5 key, so try that if F8 doesn't work.

CleanUp! deletes EVERYTHING out of your temp/temporary folders, it does not make backups. If you have any documents or programs that are saved in any Temporary Folders, please make a backup of these before running CleanUp!. Run CleanUp! and click on the Options button. Uncheck 'Scan local drives for temporary files'. Also uncheck those two Newsgroup entries if you don't want to delete them. Click OK and then click on the CleanUp! button. Let it run. After it's done, choose Yes to logoff.

Now open Ewido and do a scan on your system.

* Click on scanner
* Click on Complete System Scan and the scan will begin.
* NOTE: During some scans with Ewido it is finding cases of false positives.
o You will need to step through the process of cleaning files one-by-one.
o If Ewido detects a file you KNOW to be legitimate, select none as the action.
o Do NOT select 'Perform action on all infections'
o If you are unsure of any entry found, select none for now as the action.
* Once the scan has completed, there will be a button located on the bottom of the screen named Save report
* Click Save report.
* Save the report .txt file to your desktop or a location where you can find it easily.

Restart your computer and post the Ewido log and a new HijackThis log.

Or the most likely cause.. Winsock is corrupted. In Windows ME and
earlier Winsock was seperate from the operating system. It was easily
uninstalled and reinstalled. In Windows XP (and 2000 I believe)
Winsock and the TCP/IP stack are built into the operating system. They
cannot be uninstalled. BUT there are a number of ways to fix a corrupt
Winsock without reinstalling Windows. (reinstalling Windows should be
a LAST CASE scenario)

I suggest you first open a command prompt and type "netsh int ip reset
resetlog.txt". This will reset Winsock. If that doesn't work, download
LSPfix from http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm. This repair software fits
on a floppy and can fix most all Winsock2 problems.”

Others have recommended resetting the TCP stack or using the system restore utility to revert the system to an earlier date. The viruses would all be back as well, of course.

I went through all the steps once more to be sure I did everything correctly. I did log off when asked by CleanUp! but every time I start it, it reports being unable to delete 1 or 2 files. Maybe it deletes them during the logging off procedure. Would rebooting in safe mode be the better option?

I ran the LSP-Fix programme and here is what it says:
Under ‘Keep’ on the left it lists:
Mswsock.dll Tcpip
Winrnr.dll NTDS
Rsvpsp.dll (Protocol handler)

The ‘Remove’ section on the right is empty. Of course, I can’t make much sense of that, but the readme file also says that… “Since some errors result from misnumbered LSP entries rather than missing modules, the "Remove" list may be empty. Don't worry if this is the case; the misnumbered entries will be corrected when you press "Finish".”

Maybe, the file list gives you some idea of what may be wrong here. Or maybe there is something else I could investigate or try out. I am grateful for your help so far remain hopeful that we can fix this in the end.

Thanks for all the help so far. I was away for two days, but I have now downloaded and run the WinsockFix software and then reconfigured the TCP/IP settings by looking up the IP address etc. on the other computer in the house that is connected to the same router.

Unfortunately, the problem with the websites is still there. This is really proving to be intractable. Would you know anything else I could try?
For instance, is the LSPfix software equivalent to the WinsockFix software or may I try the former one as well?

Or, WinSockfix seemed to suggest that some things may be done manually rather than automatically, though it all sounded pretty confusing to me.

In any case, the symptoms still point to some sort of malware or virus I would think. As far as I can see the computer is clean now, but the effects may be lasting ones, i.e. it does not stop with the removal of the virus.
Or are there other possible causes that block only certain websites – and especially the usual suspects like Hotmail, anti-virus sites, windows update, etc.

No, they are different programs. LSPFix will be able to repair a specific winsock layer if it's broken or if it's malware. WinsockFix will go the whole nine yards and wipe out all the chains (even good ones) and also do a lot of other things behind the scenes (like resetting the hosts file, etc.).

Nope, it's the opposite. LSPFix does it manually.

I think it's something else blocking it. Let's try this.

Go to Start->Run and type in each of the following (just repeat Start->Run for each line) and hit OK. See if they register correctly: